July 1, 2008

Ha ha. So writes Michael Phillips. That's what I thought: This is like "Braveheart," right down to the deep, minimalistic love story.

There's a lot in this war movie — the coming of age of Genghis Khan — that women can love. Beautifully photographed landscapes. Fabulous fashion. (Those hats!) Horses galore. Feisty kids. Manly men who sing in that amazing overtone voice. Beautiful women who make the first move, stand their ground, and accomplish daring feats. Lovers separated and united. Bondage. (Do you know what a cangue is?) Tribal customs from the 12th century. Lots of eating and drinking. (Meat carved off the bone and eaten from a knife and endless bowls of (occasionally poisoned) liquid). Also a lot of knives, arrows, and blood.

"Mongol" should count as a law movie too. Temudgin (Genghis Khan) comes up with the big idea: "Mongols need laws." And that related idea: "I will make them obey, even if I have to kill half of them." He also happens to say: "Mongols have the right to choose."

Other reminders of Ford abound, as well as reminders of David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia... Olivier's Henry V and Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky must also be tucked away in [the director Sergei] Bodrov's head...

"It appears that Genghis Khan left a mark on more than history: His influence may persist in the DNA of men today. According to an international team of geneticists, about 1 in 12 men in Asia--and therefore 1 in 200 men worldwide--carry a form of the Y chromosome that originated in Mongolia nearly 1,000 years ago. Today's unusual prevalence of this chromosomal variant is most likely the result of Genghis Khan's military success, the investigators say. Even more provocatively, the researchers suggest that Genghis Khan himself had this particular version of the Y."

This is supposed to be the first in a trilogy of Temujin films. It was actually fairly light on battle, since it stops right at the point GK unifies the Mongols.

I have to confess, I've never seen a movie about a heroic leader whose woman used sex with other men to help him out. Didn't Bravehart hinge on defiance of that? (Setting aside that "first night" was a symbolic thing.)

If you ever ask a guy if he'd rather have been Genghis Khan and he says "No" or "Who's that?": nominate him for Secretary of HHS, be friends with his sister(s), have the occasional lunch, take him to the concert or ballet, but never say "Oh yeah? Bet you can't do this!".